The Sacrament

Those. People. Be. Trippin'

STILL

STILL they play this shit.

I suppose I should be grateful or something that 2009 is bringing some of the muck all out into the light. But this is some BOLD ass racist shit. And everytime I want to stop giving Obama a break, I see one of these oozing white thought sores and think, nah dread. Let him settle some more. Cause those people have lobbyists and who knows what shit dem a pulling behind the scenes.

IJDEK!

That anxiety this morning? Knocked me out for the -whole- day. Now to see if I have a brain for food making.

ETA: On the one hand, I want to go 'I have trauma from shopping?!!' and then y'know, I remember my child & teenhood.

Have just bought myself an external hd enclosure, and a internal hd. Cost just over $100. I can buy books. I can buy food. I can buy groceries. I can pay my bills. But when it comes to certain purchases I end up like this, wanting to pee and vomit on myself in total fear that I made the wrong choice, didn't do enough research, didn't do enough number crunching.

I know I researched this for most of the year. I know that my experiences with TigerDirect were positive several years ago, and chances are they'll be positive again. My mother's experiences are not my own, especially given how she tends to complicate a situation.

Still, logic? Ain't no friend of anxiety. Logic gets the 'Talk to the Hand' and Anxiety sashays off and owns the place.

PS: Waited an hour and a half to add a $7 mouse to my order. My order? Already processed and in a box. And thus I'd have to pay shipping. So uhm, guess I'll mosy down to Target or something - if I find the energy, and see what I can do and hope things last out till then.

PPS: The Media Player of my dreams, ie, with features I've been dreaming about? Just became available. Of course I just spent money on myself. So I have difficulty seeing me spending even -more- money on myself. Guess I should take comfort knowing it is -here-. (ETA: OMG it has ... ok, this would just be boring tech gush. But it has unexpected tech gush. Seriously, if they threw in a camera, I'd likely end up buying it right this second)

It has a camera.

A camera people.

*puddles into amoeba of drool*

*Willow knows what she's getting herself for the holidays, even if she has to call it an early birthday present*
ETA: There are WEP vs WPA complications. But not enough to keep from all 'Oooh'

We went down to Salinas to J's sister's new place, and holy crap is it huge. It's got a nifty layout, and infinitely more space than their old house. We hadn't seen Natalie since before she was walking so it took a while for her to stop giving J and I the suspicious eye, but by the end of the night it was lots of carry-me arms, and where Sophie is usually all about her Uncle J, somehow this time I ended up with her hanging on me more often than not. I suspect it was that I was wearing a pink shirt so that boosted my coolness rating. It's interesting to see the ways her personality has changed now that she's a big sister. Sometimes I wish we lived a bit closer in order to visit more often.

Anyway, we hung out, ate food, played with dolls, tried to devise a plan to steal their adorable pug, and at the end of the evening I got the bonus of belated b-day gifts. See subject. I have also increased my fuzzy scarf collection by one, so I should probably put out some of the ones I don't wear often out onto the curb.

The drive was nice, and J and I talked a lot about the ways in which we'd like to focus on our projects for school and general creative things. I'm back to having a solid idea of where to go with my current assignments so I'm feeling very rejuvenated about them. Which is good, as I need to be doubly-focused this weekend, since I didn't actually get any extra days off, and the lab is closed tomorrow which is typically my dedicated time to go in and work all day on my homework!

Happy Turkey Day everyone!!

We had the usual foods, turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, vegetables, gravy, and yams. It was all good and tasty.

I have a question for everyone though. How do you like your yams and how are they (if they are) cooked for your holiday feast?

Candied yams are my favorite, especially the way my dad makes them. With caramel and marshmallows. My aunt makes them whole, twice baked with brown sugar, and that was really good too.

Hope everyone is having a fine holiday. I know I am... even if dinner will be a touch late because I wasn't feeling in the mood to start it earlier. :)

I'm thankful to good friends (virtual and otherwise). I'm thankful that no one in my family is laid off. I'm thankful to cool weather that actually pretends to be Fall after all. And I'm thankful that I don't have to be back to work until Monday. :)

So my gift to all of you is the gift of a rather cool ova. It has many names... It's being called, Dogs: Bullets & Carnage. (This link is a description of the show). When you look at the videos (there are 4) it looks like it says Dogs: Stray Dogs Howling in the Dark which is the name of the manga it's based on. I really enjoyed it, slipped tameiki a copy during Y-con. We watched the first episode and she seemed to like it.

I present to you (direct downloads) of:
Episode One
Episode Two
Episode Three
Episode Four

Enjoy the videos.

zvi_likes_tv available via Twitter. (Either DM's or @Zvi_likes_tv)

She says she's bored, so anyone willing entertain her with tweets, feel free.

Zvi, (zvi_likes_tv) is currently inpatient (and doing better for it) and accessible only via her cellphone.

Good wishes appreciated.

Just woke up, crashed this morning with residual panic (sometimes it comes in waves). Best thing so far in the fifteen minutes I've been up? GP Doctor got my message, called to find out how I was, understood that I don't have control over that level of panic, let me know I didn't have to take the medicine and we could work something else out, wants to make sure I try and get a reschedule in within two weeks.

I want to cry in relief.

It lowers so much remaining tension with dealing with people. Really.

Meanwhile I want to attempt to tidy up some in the apt, and see if I can't cook myself a turkey breast for Thursday.

Tommy Icon for Self

Oh yeah, in Dreamwidth Isn't Archiving My Comments With LJ Archive News? I deleted all but my race rants from imported LJ entries. LJ-Archive still can't sync properly even though it now says I have 14698 comments instead of 70k something. Also despite using LJ-Sec to delete posts, some just randomly stayed and had to be deleted by hand. So I'm pondering that LJ-Sec is yet another tool that doesn't quite work with Dreamwidth.

( It got longer that expected )

I have never had so many WIPs at once EVER. Between fannish glee and original pursuits, I have... TEN on the go at once. Okay, geez, I didn't think it was that many when I went to count. And not WIP as in, paused and will perhaps never finish WIP (though I have a few of those now and it is also a new experience for me) but stories that I'm actively WORKING on. This makes me CAPSLOCK for EXCESSIVE EMPHASIS like I'm HARRY freakin' POTTER.

It's enjoyable to have so much that makes me go sdkjls, but I sorta miss my hardcore focus of hardcoreness. I probably am getting just as much or more done, but it feels like less when I don't have a tidy sequential to do list to check off.

Talk, talk, talktalktalk. Hello, insane hour of the morning. I think I saw you here the same time yesterday, imagine that.

Originally posted at Dreamwidth here. Please comment there using OpenID or ask me for an invite code. :3

And now, porn. My excuse is Tony.

Quality Assurance
Marvel movieverse (Iron Man, X-Men). Tony/Remy. NC-17. ~3800 words. For 'aphrodisiacs' on my kink_bingo card.
The syringe was loaded, ready and waiting on the low coffee table beside the spread of cards and scatter of half-empty bottles.

( Read me. )

So y'know how I said I'd make it to my doctor's appt? I forgot I'm not the sole voice of authority in here. Just cancelled it.

Too much anxiety at confronting her about the lyrica. Just left voicemail saying I couldn't come in and explaining why. Now maybe my womb will stop hurting just a little bit and I'll stop shaking and my chest will stop hurting and I can stop crying.

Y'know?

Sometimes, I am brave. At other times, I worry my anxiety might cause me to shiv someone. Ok maybe not cause me to shiv someone. But shving could seriously happen - I get violent or terrified when I'm very anxious with no real way to tell. And seriously, if a treat of Peanut Butter Cups shaped like Christmas trees couldn't get me to leave the house, and the threat of a library fine, then I need to pay attention and not try to walk, outside, when my lower half feels all TMI.

Meantime, I'll be over here curled up in a ball, trying not to should or 'you are such a coward' myself. Oh yeah, also no SI - have to remember to focus on that.

Scott's back at work today. He recovered enough yesterday to transport Cordelia to Daisies, so I'm hopeful that all is well. We may never know what caused the problem.

Cordelia asked me not to stay for the Daisies meeting. That was hard (but necessary). Scott and I went home and watched TV for about fifty minutes. I imagine Scott got some amusement out of watching me make myself wait patiently for the right time to put my coat on and head for the car again. Part of me wanted to go back immediately so as not to be late picking Cordelia up.

I asked the psychiatrist today about borrowing her light box. There's a waiting list, so it will be two or three weeks before I get my turn. I'm hopeful that it will be helpful this year since I've been wanting light.

The pain levels from my leg are down. Sitting on the couch still hurts, but many other things no longer do or do at a level that's ignorable. I'm continuing the PT exercises and hoping that the improvement continues. Scott's starting to look at replacement couches, but I'm still hoping we won't need to go that far.

I had every intention of going to sleep when I headed to the bedroom at a reasonable hour (This is after the nap you insisted I take Fickle). But I just couldn't. Anxiety cranked up and up, so I had to find something to research to soothe myself. Eh, that did not go well and the results of what I did end up reading/surfing are at the bottom of the post.

But, I've realized where my current pain is coming from. Yes it is raining. Yes I do have joint pain. But I also have womb pain. A particular type of womb pain. A panic induced womb pain. Oh how I did not miss it. And yes it's related to my mother. Anyway it explains why I didn't want to go to bed when it came on - fears of nightmares no doubt just under my subconscious.

I will get to my doctor's appt in the rain today, but this kind of pain is even more debilitating when I'm out of the house. So eff la de dah brain, you craven politician you.


=============

Backtracking January, possibly doing exposure to the harmful stimuli therapy for desensization or something around those lines, I came across this line, from someone who'd had several people patiently explaining to them their ass was showing.

Note stopping conversation for a family emergency - totally valid. It's just sigh + eye roll when they decide this is the best response t things that had been pointed out to them:

"Praise is MORE IMPORTANT when dealing with the -isms, even though it's true that we shouldn't HAVE to praise people for doing the right thing."

Apparently some of us in this world need to walk around with backpack ovens so we can hand out fresh baked cookies all the time as a first impulse.

Scott is sick. He went to UHS after throwing up at work and was told that it's too soon to know what's wrong. We might still be lucky and have it be a rapidly passing stomach bug. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

That probably means no Daisies tonight. I can't see dragging Scott out for the transportation. I wish, once again, that I could drive.

Illness in the house leaves me worried about my Yuletide fic (among all the other worries). I do at least have a completed draft. It's unbeta'd as of yet, but it's my third draft. I mainly worry that I'll be too sick to post when the archive finally does open. Well, that, and I worry about coming up with a title.

Illness in the house also has me fretting about the busy second half of the week. Cordelia is heavily invested in our plans coming to fruition. I hate the thought of disappointing her (and of having all three of us stuck in the house with no relief for five days!). Currently, we plan to have Thanksgiving with Scott's parents. Cordelia will spend Thursday night with her cousins. Friday is the family birthday party for our niece, and Scott and I will go up after he gets off work to attend and to retrieve Cordelia. Saturday is a potluck at jss's place.

So it's begun. The holiday hints, nudges, shoves by my mother at how much my siblings would love to see me for Christmas and how much she can do for me if I show up.

Considering how...odd I feel right now? Like I don't even know if I want to to Zvi's for Thanksgiving, because I'm on edge, in pain, out of sorts, pondering spoons, etc? I just...

It feels superstitious to say I feel pre-warnings that this will be a bad holiday season and instinct tells me to hunker down and wait for it to be over. But that's how I feel right now. Find some books I can enjoy, have pizza and wait for January 2nd.

Obviously I'm depressed and it's cranking my lack of sociability ever upwards, yes?

bulletpoints!

- Although I managed surprisingly well on cards last year, there's no way I'm going to manage this year. I'm slightly bummed about this, but I think I'll just resolve to send more random letters throughout the year as that's way more fun to receive.

- I made adorable cupcakes at work again. I wish I had an excuse to make them at home, or a whole lot more people to foist them off on.

- The last two episodes of Fringe made me all excited and giddy, even with a brief Not Sure If Want moment in there. I need to get over my tendency to want to fit things neatly in canon and just write the smushy porn that I want to write.

- There is absolutely no way to reply to an anon thread with you as the subject without a) being a dick, b) encouraging the drama, and c) being a dick. I replied anyway.

- There is absolutely no way to blog/tweet/mention replying to an anon thread with you as the subject without encouraging the drama and being a bit of a dick, but it made me laugh. Oh, people.

- I had this big complicated adventure dream with JDM in it last night. It was awesome. Then I had to get up and go to work, which was less awesome, even though our new brunch cook made me Huevos for breakfast.

- Speaking of our new cook, she's been teaching J how to make stuff. Including this awesome grilled tomato salsa which is downstairs right now, calling to me. She's the best.

- I severely need a nap, but if I sleep now I'll wake up at the time which I should be going to bed. Conflict.

My hip has hurt for three days straight, and it's kind of getting to me. It's not a biting, omg need to vomit pain. But it feels wrong and makes me worry and overthink.

Also I miss DW. Yes I'm still commenting, but I miss the people that drop in to say *hugs*. I'm very much aware that it's a 'deal' to come to iJay and people tend to do so and catch up on a bunch of posts at once. The major thing is, however, the very reason I'm not over there (inability to save comments) makes missing it useless. Because I'd be there and anxious about not being able to save it, or just be xposting there with comments on here.

But it rankles a lot that some problem with my imported lj comments apparently isn't duplicable. It's the thing that originally made me go - hey this could get me just about 98% or more LJ free and pay attention to dw in the first place. And then it irks that you can't show comments but have comments closed. And it irks that you can't have comments open on individual posts if the comment default for the journal itself is 'comments disabled'. I mean Blogger has that. Since when has Blogger been on the cutting edge of the industry. They only figured out how to do easy jump cuts THIS YEAR. And it doesn't even work for everyone.

Meanwhile I've discovered/confirmed/reconfirmed my romance hot button trope.

But it doesn't feel very important at all given the hip pain. Seriously hip pain sucks. A lot. With rocks. Slimey rocks.

Also? Dragonage: Origins will never* drop to a price I consider reasonable given its skeezy race and trans issues *mental tantrum with fist stomping*

*[Note the dramatic emphasis]

100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do; Parts 1 & 2

I read it all the way through and suddenly realized why as a child eating out in America confused me so much (because things were so different) and why I get so easily irked when I go out to eat now.

Here I was attributing it to me being anti-social.

'Are you still working on that?' - *grits teeth* Why are you calling the meal or the experience of eating it WORK?

And the constant hovering and pouring water that some people think is good service but which just makes my stomach tense up and cramp because there's no moment to relax without someone in your face all the time. I find nothing wrong with going out and treating myself to dinner, PLEASE PLEASE do not think, dear servers, that I need company and you're doing me a favour stopping by every five to seven minutes. I'm either reading, or enjoying the view and meal.

What's most revealing to me is the comments. People insisting they can never eat or work in a restaurant owned by the person who compiled the list because there are too many rules. People insisting that someone who has all their rules must be underpaying their staff, or that they're expecting a lot of work and formality out of minimum wage staff. As if how much you get paid to do a thing, dictates whether or not you do it well and properly.

Then there's the people who're all 'You'll go out of business if you give away recipes'

And the people who think the rules are obnoxious.

And the person who called it 'early 20th Century British servant manners' - as an INSULT.

And the people who can't tell the difference between telling a customer about dishes without stating which dishes are their favourite. I mean I only give a damn about the waiter's favourite dish if I'm trying to decide something and they say 'I'm a total chocoholic and I really like x'. In which cause I immediately know it's likely to be too rich for my tastebuds.

I finally found a comment that cements to me the general consensus of the 'WTF comments'

101. A Waiter will never, by word or sign, indicate that he or she believes he is a human being of equal worth as the patrons of the restaurant. When the Waiter accepts a check signed by the restaurant owner/manager, that proves he or she is inferior.


102. A Waiter will never, when off duty, off the restaurant premises, or anywhere else, act in a manner unbecoming to the restaurant. The Waiter is an ambassador for the restaurant and is at all time responsible to the restaurant for his or her behavior. The Waiter is permanently the property of the restaurant.

So being quietly respectful, not presenting oneself as a diner's new best friend, allowing people to eat in peace and trying to be attentive to their needs is .... wage slavery? And then the US claims that it is a service oriented economy?

And I find myself pondering the whole Sir, Ma'am, Miss thing. Though I'm not sure people say 'Miss' in the US. But the whole thing about Sir & Ma'am being cracks on age and not terms of respect? WTF? I know I've never felt more comfortable - unexpectedly comfortable- than when first visiting my step-family in Georgia and suddenly all the manners that got me labeled 'kiss up' etc in NYC, were just plain accepted.

ETA: Geeze people. A waiter doesn't have to hover in order to be attentive and not seem to disappear when a guest/customer needs them. They can be at the front or the back of the dining area, visible when not attending other tables. It's not rocket science people!

ETA2: Zvi was the one who clued me on minimum wage and how important tips were financially to American waitstaff. I grew up where tips were a bonus for good service. Given my reaction in general to American waitstaff service - I previously was not leaving any tips. Zvi still seems to me, to find not leaving a tip to be rude. But it's ingrained in me, deeply, not to pay for service I did not find desirable. And I'm ecstatic when service is such, I don't have to remember 'well, they probably don't get paid much and Zvi said it is helpful to the working stiff so I should give -something-'

Spam! Wrote this not long after TDK came out but never posted it. Since the evil twin just wrote Joker/Scarecrow with similar elements, I knew I had to post it as the same time as hers or I'd never do it. Team Porn does Arkham. Arharhrh.


The Frayed Ends
Batman. Batman/Joker. R. ~1000 words. Nolanverse. Violence.
Darkness gathers into a swarm around them and Bruce doesn’t want to let the bastard take one more goddamn breath.


( Read Me. )